spritzer

Thank you all!! It's been a great day so far but now I'm going out to dinner and then there is this lovely cake sitting in the cooler...

Burn in made me hate the HE90 so it's not all good. That being said the basic theory behind caps running in with use is amongst other things dielectric absorption of the insulator used which certainly is real but if it matters or not I don't know. Some gear does grow on you with time and some doesn't. You just have to read the meet impressions see what gear is always picked in a short session. Take the recent Nor.Cal. meet for instance where everybody loved the Lambda Signatures but that's a phone that is impressive due to it's forward/open nature but it also has some issues which it tough to identify unless you know they are there or can spend some significant time with the cans.

That was what I was getting at...

I don't know why I find it so funny but a few years ago "run in" was a fringe thing that most were skeptical of but now it's the accepted norm. Same with cables but warm up is something which is very real but almost always overlooked.

Good idea as there is no reason to open up a KGSS but this arrangement with the caps was a bit annoying at first on the BH when I was tube rolling like mad.

Lets see what shows up in Japan over the next few months. I'll also find a Sigma for you but if that fails I'll just have to send you my own set.

More bling=superior sound. It's a fact.

There are indeed wires to the BG's so you can't fully remove the top panel, only open it like the bonnet of a car.

I've been doing some digging and it looks like this is the last version of the SR-1 so I can't really cross it off my list until I've found one of the early ones... I have plenty of tape and loose women so send me the phones and I'll see what I can come up with.

I think it has a lot to do with lack of experience and the common error that paying more will get you something better. Add that to the fact that active cables must be better then passive. Mikhail can also spin some crazy shit to sell his amps and make people believe all kinds of things. Btw. Did anybody else notice that the top cap of the tube on the right isn't connected or am I missing something... Good to bring up the Indra and Stealth cables in general. Very expensive they are but the Indra brings something new to the table, custom made connectors and amorphous wire. It's the best IC I've ever used and I will probably pick up a set to use on the BHSE.

Stuff like this is why I hate audiophiles. VD cables with their "big ass magnets" and other stupid shit, then there is Transparent with their carbon fiber boxes full of 1cent parts, Tara Labs with the "vacuum" cables and Siltech, Jena, Nordost and the list goes on and on. Epic facepalm indeed.

Tube PSU for your cables...

Here are some pics of the SR-1. It appears that the SR-1 didn't have a white shell like the SR-3 and later phones but this slightly brownish color as it was also on the inside. The baffle was white though. The drivers are very similar to the SR-3 but the stators are smaller and there was some refinement in the later model such as how they are held together.

For 200$ you are much better off building your own cables. Four silver bullet plugs, thin silver wire and some teflon tubing and start soldering. Btw. Don't get me started on the DBS crap or what Singlepower is pushing.

Thanks Next project are some Lambda Signatures in need of some major TLC... Now that I have the SR-1, my interest in the Sony is dwindling fast...

Oooohhhhh Stax SR-1 in the house, cleaned, all glue replaced and fitted with new earpads!!! Amazingly there is no imbalance and they sound great for something made in the 60's. This set appears to be S/N: 293 but it's of the later variant though not many of these were made and mostly sold in Japan. I paid a fucking fortune for them but having all this history sitting on my head I don't care... First impressions are that they are very midrange centric and with surprisingly good HF response but small details and bass depth are lacking compared to the later models, even the SR-3. Certainly better then the "first ESP" Koss ESP6. A lot of elbow grease, strong cleaners and metal polish made them look like that. The electret cable works like a charm and the stock strain relief isn't fixed to the cable so it was very easy to make it look good. Well yeah but I just want to use the massive Sony housing. You are also just saying that so I keep my crazy hands off the 600...

If I do chicken out on fucking up the very rare ECR-600 then I have some ECR-400 drivers which are essentially the same.

The original adapter is included and I have a nice 70's powerhouse to push them. I still don't get any volume to speak off so I have the urge to do some diaphragm work... Here is some porn for you. You know that you are first in line for them if I do sell them. The connector had to go to the scrap bin so I'm using a ECR-400 cable with a Stax socket on the other end.

I just opened up the ECR-600 drivers and Sony were indeed nuts. The spacers used to hold the diaphragm are 1.2mm thick!!! The stators are slightly recessed so shave 0.3mm off that number but a D/S gap of 0.9mm is unheard off in headphones save for the Jecklin Floats. Stax normal bias uses a 0.3mm gap and Stax Pro bias is 0.5mm so just imagine what it takes to get any volume out of these drivers with an electret film. Looking at the drivers I just had a crazy idea, how about replacing the electret film with some nice mylar and using an external bias. It is easy to access the diaphragm with an extra wire to feed it bias and with a D/S gap like that it can easily handle a 1000v bias or even well above that while being driven from a Stax amp.

The SRM-T1 has jacks like that so just unscrew the plate and replace all of the RCA's with some better ones along with the wiring. The WBT newxtgen jacks ft perfectly...

You really have to stop eating that stuff

I start off re soldering all the connections on the offending RCA jack but Deoxit does work very well. Try Brasso for very oxidized connectors.

He's selling some 0.9um film on Headwize and that would make for excellent headphone drivers.

It seems to me that longevity wasn't one thing that they thought about. It had simply decomposed everywhere and turned into liquid form, even inside the phones and the connector. The phones were in horrible condition, every metal bit has a thick layer of oxidation and they were covered in filth so the cable breakdown could be caused by some external source but it had to be airborne to reach the inside of the earcup and the wires inside the molded plug. Testing them off a SRM-1 I get only a very soft sound at full volume but it isn't much better from the damn adapter box with all of the 3 amps I've tried. Pushing 75w into the damn thing and it won't play so I may have to get drastic and find some 1:100 transformers to play these things. Btw. I just saw that my Stax SR-1 should be delivered this evening. :dance:Time to see just how good the original is.

...and you think it isn't on my list? I have let one system slip past me and one solo energizer but I will find a set eventually. Btw. I just realized that the ECR-600 is identical to the 800 but only with a 4 core cable. They are pretty comfortable for a supra and the Stax SR-X earpads are a near perfect replacement. Yay Stax for saving yet another planar.